This invention relates to apparatus for preventing the twisting of electrical cords or cables in general, and more particularly to apparatus which is employed in conjunction with a bearing assembly utilized for preventing the twisting or coiling of a wire or a cord and employed for eliminating noise in the conductive bearing assembly during operation.
The prior art is replete with a number of patents which relate to the problem of avoiding the twisting or coiling of various wires. Many of such patents utilize a conductive bearing assembly to allow rotation of one wire with respect to another, while other patents utilize such a conductive-bearing assembly to prevent the twisting of an input wire with respect to an output wire.
Essentially, reference is made to U.S. Pat. No. 4,592,605 entitled APPARATUS FOR PREVENTING THE TWISTING OF AN ELECTRICAL CORD OR CABLE, which patent issued on June 3, 1986 to Albert W. Kapler of Edison, N.J., one of the inventors herein.
As one can ascertain from that patent, there is disclosed an apparatus for preventing the undesirable twisting of an input wire or cable. Essentially, the apparatus includes a housing which has an input and output port and an internal hollow. Located within the hollow is a ball bearing assembly having an inner and outer race electrically connected to the other by means of the roller bearings. An input wire is conducted to the outer race which for example is rigidly secured to the housing, while the inner race has a central aperture into which aperture is positioned a partial circular conductive plate. An input wire is electrically connected to the outer race, while the output wire is electrically conducted to the plate associated with the inner race. Thus the bearing assembly provides a connection between the wire connected to the outer race and the wire connected to the inner race via conductive ball bearings.
Essentially, the conductive plate is associated with an elongated rod or other device which is coupled to adjacent bearing assemblies via their associated plates. The entire apparatus as described in this patent is particularly adapted to prevent the twisting of an electrical cable such as a telephone cord or similar cord. In this manner the coiling or twisting of a cord is prevented by utilizing the apparatus depicted in that patent.
As indicated above and as one can ascertain from the art cited against the patent, conductive-bearing assemblies have been employed in many applications to prevent the twisting of wires or to allow an input wire to rotate with respect to an output wire such as for making connections to various motor devices, commutators and so on.
It is therefore believed that the type of prior art cited in the above-noted patent and also the type of prior art cited against the above-noted patent application during prosecution generally relates to such concepts as will be described herein.
Before proceeding with an explanation of the invention, it is indicated that such conductive-bearing assemblies are relatively expensive. In any event, most bearing assemblies are completely conductive due to the fact that the roller bearings are fabricated from a conductive metal as is the inner and outer race. As one can ascertain, when utilized in a telephone system, such a conductive bearing assembly produces a whistling sound or noise as electrical contact is not firmly made between the bearings and the inner and outer races during rotation. Thus during the twisting of the cord, the rotation of the bearings will tend to interrupt communications or electrical contact or provide electrical noise.
In any event as the bearings rotate with respect to the inner and outer races, a whistling sound or various other sounds may be produced on the telephone line. As one can also ascertain, it would be a desire to provide such apparatus as inexpensively as possible to enable the apparatus to be mass produced at an extremely economical cost.
Hence it is a main object of this invention to provide a device utilizinga bearing assembly which device is employed for preventing the twisting or coiling of a telephone wire or other wire and for providing an optimum electrical contact between the same.
As is indicated, it is an object of this invention to provide a roller bearing assembly which will enable one to couple an input wire to an output wire and to prevent twisting or coiling of the same or to enable the rotation of the output wire with respect to the input wire while providing a reliable and effective electrical connection.
As one will ascertain, certain of the prior art devices utilized a connection between the inner and outer races which usually consisted of a metallic member which essentially was electrically connected from the outer race to the inner race to prevent the above-noted problem of electrical noise. In any event, such devices as described in the prior art were not reliable in that the wire employed would become brittle or would essentially lose contact with the inner and outer races thus creating additional problems.
It is therefore a further object of the present invention to provide electrical contact between a conductor bearing assembly while preventing undue noise during rotation of the same.